INS Announces New Filing Fees, Effective February 19, 2002

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) announced that their fees for forms are scheduled to increase on February 19, 2002. The new fees are available on the INS WebSite. The average fee increase is $20.00 per application. According to the INS, this increase was necessary in order to adjust for inflation and to recover costs of infrastructure investments. Federal guidelines require INS to review fees every two years in order to ensure that the fee levels are sufficient to cover the costs of providing immigration services. The immigration services are to be supported by filing fees rather than by tax dollars.

According to William Yates, INS' Executive Associate Commissioner for Immigration Services, "This adjustment is key to INS' dedication to provide accurate immigration information and benefits to our customers in a courteous and professional manner."

The INS will charge the fees in effect as of the day the case is received, not postmarked. Cases without proper fees are rejected by INS and returned for refilling. At the least, this will cause delay in the processing of the case. At worst, the applicant will not be considered to be in status, as s/he will not be deemed to have filed the case in a timely manner and this could result in a denial of the change of status or extension of status, etc. Therefore, an applicant should submit the petition or application for an immigration benefit with the current fees early enough to assure receipt by INS prior to February 19, 2002.
 
INS will continue to accept cases with the old fees until February 19, 2002. Therefore, it may be beneficial to MurthyBulletin and MurthyDotCom readers to file their cases, if possible, before the fees increase. Given that many filings require at least two forms or fees, the cost to the applicant could be more significant than the $20.00 listed by INS. For example, an Application for Adjustment of Status is increasing from $220.00 to $255. The fingerprinting filing fee that must accompany the I-485 is increasing from $25.00 to $50.00 per person. Therefore, the applicant must spend $60.00, per person, in additional fees for this process. If there are derivative applications for a spouse or children, the fees are proportionately increased and the ultimate out-of-pocket cost increases substantially for each family.

Although some are critical of the increased fees charged by the INS, which comes less than 2 years after the last INS fee increase, there are many of us who realize that in order to get good service from the INS there needs to be a proportionate fee increase. In the ultimate analysis, we do hope that the INS substantially improves the time taken to process petitions and applications. This will help to justify the fee increase to those paying the fees. We believe that the government has a responsibility to ensure that the fees charged correspond to the quality and responsiveness of the services provided.